Generations of Girls Tournaments
June 22, 2012
The MHSAA will have its “40th Anniversaries” for seven girls sports tournaments during the next three school years, but they are not our longest running girls tournaments.
The earliest MHSAA tournament for girls was regional in scope for the sport of alpine skiing – almost 60 years ago – in the winter of the 1953-54 school year. Two regional meets were held for girls, and two for boys. This continued for 21 consecutive years.
The first statewide MHSAA Ski Meet was held in Marquette in early 1975, the culminating event for a season during which the sport was sponsored for girls by 63 schools and for boys by 68 schools.
The first statewide MHSAA tournament for girls in any sport was held Jan. 12, 1972 in the sport of gymnastics. Of 52 schools sponsoring girls gymnastics at that time, 33 had girls qualify for and participate in the meet, and 30 schools scored in six different events (today girls gymnastics has just four events; trampoline and tumbling no longer are contested).
During the 1972-73 school year, the MHSAA sponsored and conducted girls tournaments in tennis, swimming & diving, golf and track & field. The first MHSAA Girls Basketball Tournament occurred the following school year, 1973-74; girls softball followed in the 1974-75 school year; and girls volleyball followed in the 1975-76 school year.
The girls who played in these first tournaments are now women in their mid- to late-fifties; and some will be rooting for their granddaughters in one of the 14 MHSAA tournaments now conducted for girls.
A Rite of Spring
March 21, 2015
It is inevitable in March, as predictable as May flowers after April showers, that the weeks of District Basketball Tournaments will bring criticism, and calls to seed those tournaments so top ranked teams don’t face one another in early round games.
The MHSAA’s tournament has been unseeded for 90 years; and while we should never be slaves to the past, we should always be respectful and appreciate that smart people of previous generations had many of the same discussions we are having today; and they determined that the blind draw was best.
While the preference for the blind draw has prevailed in recent years, the almost addictive attention of the media and public to the “bracketology” of NCAA basketball tournaments appears to have improved the chances that some form of seeding will eventually be applied to the MHSAA Basketball Tournament and, in doing so, join a half dozen other sports for which the MHSAA employs at least a limited seeding plan for at least one level of those tournaments.
The challenge before us is not intellectual – seeding tournaments is not rocket science. No, the challenge is political – forming consensus for a plan that does not lead to extra travel and expense for participating schools, and that can be easily understood and simply administered at multiple sites. We are talking about 256 District tournament sites – 128 each in the Girls and Boys Basketball Tournaments. The problems and pitfalls of seeding tournaments of this magnitude are nothing the colleges have tried to tackle.
And no one should be deluded that seeding is a “no-brainer” that “everyone supports.” That is not accurate. There are many people who enjoy the fact that there are top-notch matchups every night of the District tournament weeks, and not all delayed to the nights of District finals. And there will be little enthusiasm from poorly seeded teams which are forced to drive past a closer opponent to get clobbered by a more distant opponent.
While postseason tournaments are the MHSAA’s “bread and butter” program, tournament seeding is not a defining or fundamental issue of educational athletics that requires our urgent or concentrated attention. Promoting participant health and safety, for example, demands much more attention. I’m not opposed to seeding; I just don’t give it the same importance as so much else we are challenged to do.